The Fox of Konoha: Revamped
by harry copperfield dresden
Summary: A reboot of the Fox of Konoha. Strong Naruto, Good Orochimaru. Naruto gains a weird ability, and a few new friends in the mix, how will this change the narutoverse, read, review, and find out. Rated M as a precaution. starting way earlier than the previous one so stay tuned for all new content. Oh, yeah, and Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, not me.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I am sorry to everyone, but I am rebooting the Fox of Konoha, I hope that it is better than the first one as I feel that I have grown as an author since then. So, to everyone who has read this before, and to all my new readers, I welcome you to the first chapter of The Fox of Konoha 2.0 (and yes, I am aware that it is horribly not clever.)**

The moon rose from her bed. As it was since times long since passed, ever since the Rikudo Sennin had forged the moon from the earth with his legendary eyes, the moon was at her most luminous, her beauty was not diminished by the dark trees that framed her face. Her radiance shone down through the dense canopy that blocked out almost all of the light even during the daytime. Training ground 44 was its official name, but everyone knew it as the Forest of Death.

The darkness encroached around him as he pulled his dark orange jacket around his frame, the dark was no stranger to him, in fact he loved it. The dark was always alive with secrets, things that hid during the light of day were allowed free reign at night. Trysts, collusions, secret back room meetings, poetry, magic, all of these things came alive in the night. And Naruto loved it. It was much more fun to roam the night and see the secrets of the world than it was during the day in the harsh light of the sun. To him, the world came to life only in the darkness of the night.

The next day was going to be a big one in his life, it was to be the Genin promotion test at the academy, but for some reason his godparents chose tonight to visit the village to report to the old man. They were mostly busy with their own village but were still fiercely loyal to both it and Konoha, and that showed as the two villages had close ties economically, ninja from both villages were permitted carte blanch access to both, within reason of course.

It was no big deal to Naruto whether or not the exam was tomorrow or three days from now, he was finally ready to do the distance and pass it. He had stumbled on the mention of a technique while reading, the Kage Bunshin, and when he had pestered the old man about it he had relented and shown him the technique. It was the answer to his prayers, because it had such a large power requirement he could use it even with the shitty chakra control that afflicted him because of the Kyuubi, or as he preferred to be called, Kurama.

The forest around him swarmed with life, here were wolves that had cornered their prey, a snake was crawling through the undergrowth in pursuit of a mouse, and the bats were around, feeding on insects the size of his fists, which said something about the size of the bats. The size of everything in the forest had to be ten times or more the normal size in the wild. His crazy older sister had him train in the forest every day after his classes were out for the day. Well, she wasn't technically his sister, she wasn't related to him by blood. But she was the adopted daughter of one of his godparents and she looked after him while they were gone, which after they had left to make their own village, was, essentially, all the time.

The constant training in the forest had strengthened him, and the fact that he had somebody that actually gave a damn to train him meant that he was actually not behind in his classes at all. However, his sister did make an interesting point, the less an opponent knows about you, the more they are going to underestimate what you are capable of, especially if you were the dead last in your class. In fact, if he had tried he would be tied with that raven haired Uchiha that was the poster boy for emo in his class. But if he did that it would defeat the purpose of the idiot act that he put on every day. In any case, it seemed like the forest had accepted his presence, as the foreboding feeling that pervaded the forest and warned away any intruders.

"Its almost as if the forest itself is alive." He mused to himself aloud. Not expecting any response from around or inside of him.

" **It is"** came an ancient voice from inside of him, " **This place is as old as time, a remnant of the days of the Shinju, from when this earth was young, there is a reason that the animals here are gigantic, the chakra in this place is a powerful as it is ancient."** The massive chakra construct from inside of him reminisced about the forest, as if it were familiar with it, " **This forest is from the time before humans even possessed chakra, and it still remembers that time, it is asleep now, although once, long ago it was awake and was known by a different name, but whatever that name was it has been lost to time. In a time long gone by it grew around the base of the Shinju, growing from the strong chakra that radiated from the roots and base of the mighty tree. And when the fruit was stolen from the tree, this forest rose in anger with the tree, becoming a scourge on the lands. But when the beast was quelled and sealed by the Rikudo Sennin the forest stopped. For now though, the forest sleeps and dreams of one day awakening and reclaiming the world under the Shinju, but that is a story for another time."**

By the time the fox had stopped talking Naruto had reached the clearing that he was meant to, in the center of the forest next to a tower that had been built to facilitate the Chunin exams, being the most secluded spot in Konoha didn't hurt either, as technically nobody knew that the blonde idiot from class was even allowed to enter the insanely dangerous forest, let alone that he was there with alarming regularity as it was his adopted sister's favorite training grounds.

He disliked that he only got to see his godparents under these conditions, but it was good to see them at all. In some other world, in some other time, it was possible that he would never have known them at all, or only briefly. In fact it was entirely possible from what he had heard that one of his godparents would have been one of the worst villains in Konoha history. But it was useless to think about the could have been's when the present was so full of opportunity. Or more specifically, was full of opportunity for him. As he awaited his godparent's arrival in the forest he took the time to lean back against the tower and expand his chakra to the surrounding area, it was a form of sensing that was only usefull for people with a large amount of chakra, and the technique itself was somewhat akin to echolocation. By keeping his senses open to the chakra he pulsed into the clearing he could "see" the shapes of things that blocked the path of the pulse.

Normally all he saw was the outlines where the chakra was blocked, creating shadows against the background of the blue of his natural chakra. But this time was different, not five feet in front of him, was a shape that shone a calming radiance, as if it was adding chakra to the surrounding air around it not simply making its own or feeding the natural system around it. Startled, he opened his eyes to see the being, but, when he did so he found that he could not see it.

"I know you are there, show yourself!" demanded the young shinobi, drawing a kunai from the holster on his right leg, bringing it to bear against this unknown person.

" _You cannot yet see me, yet you know me"_ came a surprisingly feminine voice, it seemed to echo throughout the clearing, " _I am the right of your blood. And a companion for your loneliness."_

Naruto was astounded at this, in all of his reading he had never heard of a technique like this, unless it was genjutsu, but his relationship with Kurama should be able to negate genjutsu. Even so, the blonde made the ram sign and pulsed his chakra again, trying to force any foreign chakra that might be in his system out of it. But afterwards found that he could still feel the presence of the strange being in front of him.

" _I see you do not trust me,"_ the voice sounded wounded, as if his actions had honestly hurt her emotions, " _Can you not recognize my voice?"_ the voice inquired, he could tell it was moving closer to him by the presence of power it was emanating, as it got closer he started to get the feeling of recognition, as if it was something he had long forgotten, or else something he had yet to realize, and grow into. The voice continued in its speech, each word leading him closer to the understanding that he knew was just out of his reach.

" _I held you on the days that you were the saddest, I was the warm wind that carried your hopes and dreams as you sat on top of the monument. I was there every time you were rejected by others, and I was there when you were saved from the mobs by your sister. You know me Naruto Uzumaki, and you gave me my name. You named me after the gentle breeze that comes on a hot day to bring relief. And although you have long since stopped believing in me, I have never left your side."_ The being was right on top of him, and wrapped itself around him, surrounding him in a comforting wind that warmed him to the core.

Naruto's eyes widened as memories came flooding back. Memories from before he had met his godparents, from before his life had taken a drastic turn for the better. There HAD been something that he felt had watched over him, it made him feel as if no matter what happened to him, he would be able to rise above it and go on he had named the wind after the most gentle of things he could think of. He had thought it was just his childish mind creating something that had not actually been there out of loneliness, but that was not so. He had named her

"Zephyr" he breathed into the warm winds that surrounded him. And as he did he felt a stinging sensation inside of his eyes. He felt chakra flow into pathways he didn't even know he had as the stinging in his eyes increased to a crescendo. And as it did a figure began to be distinguished within the vortex of wind. It was, as he had guessed from the voice, a female, of slender build, young looking with modest breasts that were hidden from view by leaves that shifted about in the wind, the same could be said of her other undergarments, although that one was rather modern in construction although it was covered by a skirt made of leaves as well. Her skin had a greenish tint to it, almost unnoticeable unless one was looking right at her. As she swirled around Naruto he could feel her chakra flowing into him and becoming a part of his own.

The chakra didn't even feel foreign at first, he couldn't distinguish it from his own at all, it was almost as if it was reclaiming a part of itself, not absorbing something foreign. He could feel himself bonding with Zephyr on a level that would be impossible for anyone else to accomplish. What he didn't know was why. Why him? Out of all the people on the planet this beautiful creature had decided to watch over him when he was nothing special.

" **That's not true at all kit."** Came the ancient voice from inside of him, " **She is one of the guardian spirits of the Uzumaki Clan, she was drawn to you and has awoken in you one of the most obscure dojutsu to ever exist in the Elemental Nations. By bonding with Spirits representing the forces of nature the Reisei Shidaigan uses the bond between the wielder and the spirit to create a power far beyond the abilities of both."**

The wind around him died down as Zephyr became incorporeal and wrapped her air around him. " _It looks like somebody is coming."_ She said, disappointed that they had been interrupted so soon after finally meeting in the flesh. After saying so three figures emerged from the foliage. One possessed long spiky hair and wore a headband with the kanji for "sage" on it, he wore geta sandals and looked like he was more interested in having a good time than anything else. The second man looked like he needed a few good meals in order to put some meat on his bones, he was slender with a pale complexion, with a face that proclaimed to all and sundry that he was snake like. The third and only woman in the group of three had blonde hair and a diamond on her forehead, she was also being supported between the two men as she appeared to be drunk.

"It seems like our favorite godson has stumbled onto something interesting." The pale man stated as the three of them walked towards the tower, "His eyes did not shine like that the last time that we saw him." His eyes glittered with curiosity at the potential he saw for exploration.

"Calm down Orochimaru," the spiky haired one said, "You and Tsunade are sure welcome to your questions, but we cannot forget why we're here in the first place."

"Yer jest getn worked up cuz ya knew the gaki's parents first Jiraiya" slurred out the drunken woman between them.

"It's been a while…it's nice to see you all again." Naruto greeted the legendary sannin, and, through an odd quirk of fate, his godparents.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Well, I must warn all of you that this chapter was hell to write. But I made it to the 2k mark that I promised myself to get to. You can skip this chapter if you want, really but if you want to read it go ahead, im just telling you that I'm not really proud of this chapter is all. Please don't judge me to harshly.**

Naruto stared at the page in front of him and sighed, it was going to be tough to get out of this one without serious casualties, in all of his life nothing scared him quite so much as this, in fact, that one piece of paper was the bane of his existence at the moment. What was this mysterious paper that held such terror for our intrepid hero? It was his report card from the Academy. The reason that he was terrified of it, because of the list of A's that had appeared on it this quarter in the skills category. His godparents were of the idea that the less an opponent knew about your real abilities the better, and this list of A's was unacceptable in his "Family".

"Care to explain what these are gaki?" The blonde haired sannin inquired as she held the slip of paper out for him to see, all but shoving it into his face, the disappointment in her tone was palpable, as if she knew that he was better at hiding his skills.

"I was tired." Came the mumbled response "the instructor was trying to embarrass me in front of the class again and I wanted to see the look on their faces if I just showed what I was capable of for a few weeks."

"So, in short" came a laugh from the right of Tsunade "the tadpole wanted to show off in front of his friends, he IS an Uzumaki after all, being unpredictable and rambunctious is in their nature. Even the greatest of ninja have their quirks." Jiraiya calmly took the paper out of Tsunade's hands and tore it up, "the three of us are testament enough for that huh?" he put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her gently away from Naruto. "What's with the shiny eyes kid?"

It was at this point that Orochimaru decided to get, uncomfortably close to Naruto, his inner scientist taking over in order to take stock of the situation. He peered into Naruto's eyes observing the changes that had occurred in them. "It seems to be an ocular change based on continuous chakra flow to the region, although the chakra flow is so minimal that it might be classified as a passive change not an active one."

Everyone, Naruto and zephyr included, stared at Orochimaru, who, despite never turning to human experimentation in order to extend his life, held a deep and unquenchable curiosity that led him to discover and document more and more things in his lifetime than even he could count. Naruto was the first to recover from the quickly spoken analysis, "um, how about again but in English this time?"

Orochimaru stepped back and grinned sheepishly, which on his face just made him look positively creepy. "I just meant that he just got what looks like a dojutsu is all."

" _It is not just a dojutsu"_ came Zephyr's voice from beside Naruto causing all the sannin to jump back, and draw various weapons from various places on their respective bodies. Drawing Chakra from Naruto she materialized right next to the blonde Jinchuriki and introduced herself to the three legendary ninja. " _My name is Zephyr, and I am another part of the Dojutsu's abilities, the wielder of this particular Dojutsu, the Reisei Shidaigan and I am but a part of the circle of elements."_

The sannin took their time interrogating the new person in their midst, and they all talked long into the early hours of the morning, but, unfortunately the sun had to pop its head over the horizon and end their rendezvous, and it was time to exit the forest and enter the world of people much to his chagrin. Although it was his last day of the academy and that was a good thing, one way or another his was passing this test.

 **Later that same day**

Naruto walked down the hallway towards his classroom, thankful that today would be the last day that he had to deal with the full class on a regular basis, even though he knew that he would be paired with two of them for the Genin cell that they would be assigned to after the test. The fact that he wouldn't have to do homework ever again was an elating feeling for the blonde, and although he knew that the road in front of him was going to be hard, he had faith in himself that he would be able to take on whatever came his way. Except for the fact that he was tired he would confidently say that he would get the best grades in his class on these final examinations, not to mention that all he had to do was use the basic three ninjutsu and with the Kage Bunshin under his belt he finally had the last hurdle to his graduation cleared.

As he entered the classroom he took note of everyone inside of it. Most of his classmates were inside already; Sasuke Uchiha sat in what was by most of the guys known as the "emo corner", Shikamaru Nara sat in an inconspicuous place somewhere in the middle of class, not close enough to be noticed nor far back enough to get labeled as a slacker, even though he really was, Kiba Inuzuka sat in a different place every day but was in the front row today, Choji Akimichi sat next to Shikamaru and, as per usual was devouring a bag of potato chips, Hinata Hyuga sat in the opposite corner as Sasuke, looking out the window at the beautiful spring day, neither Ino Yamanaka or Sakura Haruno had shown up yet, Naruto noticed and was thankful for that fact, and Shino Aburame was minding his own business, sitting almost equidistant from Hinata and Sasuke.

As he looked around he noticed Haru and Rin Amaryllis getting into another argument about what plants were better for their family techniques, the Amaryllis clan was a relatively new clan to Konoha, and with their Kekkei Genkai the Shokuton (Plant Release), which although reminiscent of the long lost Mokuton was different in at least one significant way, instead of being able to grow any plant at any time like the First Hokage, their Jutsu revolved around using specially grown seeds and plants instead of any at all, nor were they able to restrain the chakra of tailed beasts. However, they had already proven themselves many times over, especially with their knowledge of rare plants and poisons. They both had the green eyes that were a symbol of their clan, Haru, the boy had bright red hair while his twin sister Rin had light blue hair the two of them both loved their plant techniques and were both considered to be the heirs of the Clan, as their father didn't much care for all the high and mighty firstborn bullshit that he saw in the Hyuga clan. The two argued as much as they agreed with each other but were inseparable and when the odds were against them they tended to show flawless teamwork.

The last classmate he saw was Yulia Yamanaka, she was one of the few serious female students in the class, the only other being Hinata, that didn't spend their time fawning over Sasuke, in fact, Yulia never even associated with the other kunoichi if she could help it especially Sakura and her cousin Ino. She wore her long blonde hair in the same traditional ponytail as the rest of her clan but that was where her similarities with her cousin ended. She wore dark blue pants and a t-shirt that, unlike her cousin, didn't leave her midriff uncovered. She was a rather aloof individual, but not to the point of being rude, she would talk to the other kunoichi if spoken to but usually preferred to be left alone. Naruto had respect for her because she didn't just follow the crowd and focused on her kunoichi training, especially because of her difficulty with the three basic ninjutsu, she, like him seemed to be unable to use the Bunshin technique and not for lack of trying either, it was as if her chakra just wouldn't listen to her when it came to the technique.

Naruto took an empty seat just as he heard two sets of footsteps rushing towards the classroom, and got ready to be bombarded by the shouts that were about to erupt in the classroom, he saw his other classmates do the same, covering their ears and such, he even saw Sasuke trying to sink even farther back into his "Emo corner" he heard Zephyr whisper into his ear " _Why is everyone plugging their ears like some kind of sonic bomb is about to go off?"_ she inquired of Naruto from inside of his mind.

Naruto shook his head as it was the first time that Zephyr had communicated to him via their link instead of with her own voice, it sounded the same and he had experience with the pseudo telepathy from Kurama, the giant fox was usually asleep. " _It's Ino and Sakura, the two loudest people in my class, and it seems like they decided to race to class again today_." He replied mentally despite feeling a bit weird in doing so, plugging his own ears just before the two mentioned kunoichi burst into the room.

"I GOT HERE FIRST!" shouted the pink haired "kunoichi" racing to secure the seat next to Sasuke, being blocked by Ino as they struggled to get through the door at the same time as each other.

"No you didn't billboard brow, as if Sasuke would want to sit next to you anyways!" she proclaimed trying to push herself past Sakura, and succeeded only in pushing the both of them to the floor in a tangled heap.

Naruto looked over to where Yulia was watching the whole scene, grimacing as she saw what passed for Kunoichi these days, before returning to her quiet meditation most likely trying to remember how to do the clone Jutsu after all. The entire class went quiet as Iruka walked into the room with Mizuki right next to him.

"Ok class today Mizuki and I will be administering the test for you to become Genin, all you have to do is demonstrate the three academy techniques and we will hand you your headbands." The class started whispering to each other in excitement they were finally going to graduate and become ninja. No more troublesome homework, no more Iruka yelling at them to be quiet. Just them and ninja stuff.

"First up is…"

 **Sometime later.**

Naruto walked up to the front of the class, he was one of the last people called to be tested and most of the class had either failed and gone home or had passed the class and done the same, preferring to get a good night's rest before being assigned to their teams the next day. As he walked up to the two teachers he readied himself, telling himself that the only thing he had to be afraid of was screwing up royally, so nothing really.

"Okay Naruto," spoke Iruka, "I would like you to perform the three techniques in any order you would like."

"Got it" Naruto formed the seal for the transformation technique he turned himself into a wooden chair, totally indistinguishable from any of the other similar chairs in the room, complete with carvings and gum underneath it to make it look even more like it belonged in the academy room. He then used the substitution technique to substitute himself with another one of the chairs in the room. And finally it was time to do the clone Jutsu. Naruto concentrated and formed the handsigns for the shadow clone justu and created a room full of himself, much to the surprise of his teachers, who numbly handed him his headband and let him leave the classroom, presumably because neither of them had any idea where the blonde had learned the Kage Bunshin, which was supposed to be a B rank forbidden Jutsu.

As they watched the blonde leave the room Iruka noticed that Mizuki stood up to leave himself. "Where are you off to in such a hurry Mizuki? We still have students waiting to be tested."

Mizuki, already halfway out the door, paused and turned to face the scar nosed Chunin. The look on his face was unmistakable, pure loathing and hatred oozed out from his visage as he resumed his exit. "Don't worry Iruka." He smirked as he left the room, "I'm just going to take care of something I should have a while ago. I won't be long."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hello once again to another chapter of...**

 **T.C.F: Hello! This is your friendly neighborhood murderer dropping in, we are back and better than ever with a reboot that'll give you goosebumps, wait that's just me breathing down your neck.**

 **Me: Crimson! Where in the hell did you come from!?**

 **TCF: You literally just said where, do I need to prove it to you?**

 **Me: not again, I had to rebuild my entire house after the last time. Where did you even find all that cotton candy and handcuffs?**

 **TCF: I know a guy…**

 **Me: Ignoring that…to all my readers I hope you enjoy this latest addition to The fox of Konoha: Revamped!**

Naruto walked out of the classroom, feeling a sense of accomplishment, he had FINALLY graduated from the academy. As he walked through the corridor he noticed that the school itself was mostly deserted. He kept to himself, not that he had any choice in the matter, but decided that tonight would be a good night to go to Ichiraku Ramen, after all, if the day he graduated wasn't a good enough reason to celebrate, then nothing was.

As he walked the darkening pathways of the village he was reminded of how, not too long ago, he wished he could walk these very streets the same as a normal kid. Now, as he walked the deserted streets of the village, his new headband glinting in the twilight, he was reminded that nobody could stop him from doing that very thing. Even if they wanted to, attacking a ninja of one's own village was tantamount to suicide if any of the Anbu ever found out. And the Anbu were masters of finding out things like that. He loved this time of day almost as much as he loved the night, it was a time in which the world seemed to hang in balance, the sun setting and the moon rising at almost the same time gave the world a unique look that most people had forgotten about, either that or they just didn't give enough of a shit to pay attention to the world around them.

As he rounded the corner that brought him to Ichiraku's he noticed that someone was already there. He opened the half curtain that hung down from the ceiling and entered the restaurant and was surprised to find the blonde haired Yulia Yamanaka half-heartedly eating what seemed to be her second bowl of ramen.

"Oh, Naruto! The usual I presume?" inquired the ramen shop owner, Teuchi, whenever Naruto stopped by their store's sales went through the roof, the kid loved ramen more than any other food on the planet.

"You bet old man!" replied Naruto "And keep it coming, today I graduated from the academy so I'm planning on eating ramen until I have to meet up with my sister."

Teuchi gave him a warm smile then turned around to start cooking what, in Naruto's opinion, was the best ramen in the entire world. Meanwhile Naruto attempted to talk to his fellow classmate. After all, it wasn't like she didn't have a family that would want to celebrate this momentous occasion with her.

"Hey!" he started off, he flashed his trademark grin at Yulia as he did so trying to make her feel more at ease with him, "What are you doing here, shouldn't you be at home with your parents or something? I'm sure they'd want to celebrate with you or something right?" he must have hit a nerve or something because as soon as he was done with his sentence he got a glare that he swore could kill somebody.

"What does it matter to you what I do with my time Uzumaki?" she replied, her eyes red and the smell around her told Naruto that the redness was from tears, not from some of Konoha's infamous genjutsu weed. She had been crying, and recently to from the looks of it. At least if the drip marks on her napkin were any indication, it wasn't even close to being dry. She had probably been crying up until the point that he had entered the establishment. She looked back at her half eaten ramen, "But if you absolutely must know when I got home all my parents wanted to talk about was how the 'Princess' had passed her exams and was one step closer to getting Sasuke to notice her." Another tear fell, unbidden, from her scarlet eyes, "That's all they want to talk about, never mind me, never mind that I train harder than her in my daily WARMUPS than she does in a week but _NO_ it's always about her." By this point her tears were free falling down her face into her ramen, making ripples in the broth. Until an orange handkerchief appeared out of nowhere in front of her, held aloft by the hand of the blonde next to her.

"Huh?" she sniffed, trying to keep her tears in check, it was kind of embarrassing to be crying in public, "What's this?"

"It's the handkerchief my sis gave me for times like these," Naruto grinned, "if she found out I let a girl cry and didn't do anything to help her I might not last the night!" he looked down at the bowl of ramen that had recently be put down in front of him by Teuchi, digging right into the "food of the gods" without pausing a beat. People could wait, it was ramen time.

After draining the last dregs of his bowl he looked over to see Yulia's face in abject terror. "Is there something on my face?" asked Naruto of his classmate, not knowing what the cause for alarm might be.

"Are you human!?" she exclaimed, shocked, "You just devoured that thing in like a minute, tops, and the only thing you have to ask me is 'do I have something on my face?'!?" Yulia had never seen anyone put food away that fast, and she had seen Choji Akimichi on Korean Barbeque day at the school. She still had nightmares about that particular incident.

Naruto just looked at her as if she had grown wings out of her ears, "What do you mean, I took my time on that one." He put down his chopsticks and placed his money on the countertop for Teuchi, including a sizable tip as was his usual custom. A gesture of thanks for two of the only people in the village that didn't treat him like he had the plague.

"You can keep the handkerchief by the way," Naruto mentioned as an afterthought, "ive got plenty more of them." He gave her a wave, "And just remember, if your parents can't see what a great person you are, then one day they'll wake up and wonder what they did wrong, when that day comes and they want nothing more than to reconcile, the damage will have been done. So don't worry about them and focus on who you are." With that, and another wave at Teuchi Naruto left the restaurant, not even trying to justify his claim of finishing a bowl of ramen in less time than this seemingly impossible feat. As he walked away he noticed that in the time that he had spent at the ramen stand the sun had set behind the horizon and the moon had begun her ascent into the night sky. The stars had risen from their beds and Naruto had a sinking feeling that he would be late to meet his sister in the Forest.

Thankfully for him he knew how to get there really fast so he knew he would avoid the worst of it if he hurried. He rushed through the village streets, thankfully still deserted, and swiftly reached the edge of the forest that surrounded the village, the Forest of Death was in a part of the forest that was a huge clearing so that the specific part of the forest couldn't leak into the rest and endanger the rest of the village. He dashed through the trees, he feet barely making a sound as he made his way deeper and deeper into the woods. He knew his way by heart and barely had to look around himself in order to find his way through the forest.

He had almost reached the edge of the forest to the clearing when he heard a shout. _"LOOK OUT NARUTO!"_ from behind him came the sound of kunai flying through the air, too surprised to react Naruto almost got impaled by the flying projectiles, however a green tinted hand materialized in front of him and caught one of them while Naruto himself was pushed away by a sudden furious wind. Caught off guard by the sudden motions Naruto lost his bearings and was unable to orient himself for a few seconds, he did however pull out a kunai from the pouch that he kept on his right leg at all times.

His assailant gave him not even a seconds rest, immediately pressing his advantage, thinking that the dark of night would further confuse the fresh genin, however he didn't count on Naruto having been trained in a forest far darker than this one on a daily basis, plus it was almost a full moon tonight, and to Naruto it may as well have been the middle of the day. If it wasn't for the fact that Naruto hated the middle of the day for being too bright. He could see his attacker clearly, or he would if there hadn't been a mask over his face. The man attacking him brought down a giant shuriken against the kunai that Naruto had drawn, forcing the Jinchuriki down onto one knee. He was at a complete disadvantage, the momentum behind the attack forced him down even further, flat onto his back. Naruto rolled to the side, avoiding what would have been a fatal blow to his head.

' _Damn it'_ thought Naruto to himself, ' _he's too quick, I can read his movements but my body can't keep up with him.'_ Naruto got up on one knee and threw multiple shuriken and kunai at his assailant, thankfully his attacker wasn't as used to the dark as he was or was otherwise careless enough to not think him a threat and one of his kunai slashed his mask right off of his face.

"Damn demon brat." Said the currently unmasked figure his shoulder length blue white hair catching the moonlight through the trees, "I thought I would give you a quick death, even though it would be too good for the likes of you." He stood up, revealing to Naruto his identity.

"Mizuki sensei!" exclaimed Naruto not expecting the kind Chunin instructor from the academy to be his assailant. He had thought the man to be a kind, gentle soul. But it turned out he had misjudged the man. "To be totally honest you were the last person I thought would attack me."

"Yes, that innocent teacher persona was supposed to fool you into stealing the scroll of sealing for me after you failed again." Mizuki's face became warped from his hatred, a smile growing on it as he thought of killing Naruto and drew forth another giant shuriken, "But that isn't important right now," he began to spin the shuriken around his hand making it gather momentum until he let it fly right at Naruto.

Naruto, seeing the immediate danger tried to move out of the way, but his body was just too slow compared to the giant shuriken, it bit into his left leg leaving a short but deep cut, blood came flying out as the shuriken embedded itself into the tree right behind Naruto. "SHIT!" he cried.

 _"Naruto!"_ shouted Zephyr, _"You can't beat him by yourself. You'll have to use me!"_

"How do I do that Zephyr?" inquired Naruto as quietly as possible, he was trying to act more injured than he was in order to get Mizuki to get in closer. In the meantime he could buy himself time by creating shadow clones. He crossed his fingers creating a plethora of himself across the battlefield, the only downside is that they dissipate after one hit. But Naruto couldn't see the alternative.

" _You need to chanel your chakra into your eyes. Then say these words"_ Zephyr commanded hastily, his clones were trying their hardest to keep Mizuki at bay but he was no pushover.

Naruto did as instructed and channeled his chakra into his eyes, exactly as Zephyr instructed, then chanted. As he began the incantation Zephyr materialized over the blonde Jinchuriki, their bodies overlapping as he spoke the incantation " **Spirit of air, manifest yourself around me, make my flesh your home and my bones your sanctuary, lend me your strength to defeat those who oppose me!"**

A gust of wind blasted around the Jinchuriki as the last of his shadow clones were dispersed by Mizuki, causing the Chunin to cover his eyes as the blast of wind surrounded him. As it cleared he saw Naruto standing there, almost the same as he had before with several exceptions, first of all his feet didn't touch the ground, which was surprising enough, the blood on his left leg hadn't stopped, but it had slowed down a significant amount, probably due to the massive amount of chakra that was being emitted by the blonde.

"Wow Zephyr!" he exclaimed in delight, liking how light his body felt now, the pain in his leg had dulled down to an ache, instead of the mind numbing hell it had been not even a minute ago, "this is amazing!" he thought he had been trained to see everything humanly possible, but the world he saw now was at least three times as detailed as it had been, things normally invisible to the naked eye became visible to him without even trying to look closely at them. But the most amazing thing to him was that he could see the currents of wind flowing through the forest. The wind curled through the forest in rivers of pale almost see-through silver. He could see it curl around himself and Mizuki, finding that he didn't even have to look to know where the rivers of air were, something inside of him just knew.

Naruto looked down at his feet and saw that wind was coalescing underneath his feet, granting him greater speed and reaction time. Smirking at the teacher that had gone through the trouble of attacking him at night and seemingly just hated his guts. He rushed him, rushing straight at the treacherous Chunin, the wind underneath his feet making his speed at least double what it had been previously, throwing off the bastard. Naruto spun just as he was about to reach him and delivered an elbow into the bastard's face, right into the mouth that had professed such hatred not even a minute ago.

Not letting up for even a second Naruto jumped and landed an axe kick onto the sprawled body of Mizuki, following up with a devastating barrage of wind enhanced punches that left the silver haired Chunin coughing up blood. This went on for a minute, leaving Mizuki with more fractured bones than he could count before something odd happened to the blonde Jinchuriki that was currently handing the silver haired Chunin his ass, suddenly all of the speed and power behind his punches vanished, along with the green glow that had appeared along with the sudden power that had surrounded the Jinchuriki.

Mizuki wasted no time in capitalizing on this good fortune as he brought down a kunai against the young genin, who seemed to be out of breath and suffering from some kind of chakra exhaustion, most likely that power he had used had a time limit or something.

Naruto closed his eyes as he waited for the kunai to come piercing through his head, ending his brief stint of life on this planet. But it never connected with its target. Much to Mizuki's surprise blocking his kunai was a black haired kunoichi with purple eyes wearing a tan trench coat.

"Hi sis." Came Naruto's voice from behind her, weak from blood loss and from the chakra exhaustion, the fusion with Zephyr had drained his reserves like nothing else he had felt before, no wonder that it was an Uzumaki Kekkei Genkai, it guzzled chakra like he ate ramen, which as he proved earlier this night, was really really fast.

She ignored Naruto's greeting, choosing instead to focus on the man in front of her, whom, by his own will had decided to hurt HER little brother "So…who dares to hurt the little brother of the sexy and amazing Anko Mitarashi?" as if on cue several more Chunin and above entered the clearing, led by Iruka, intent on either killing or capturing the rouge ninja. "You should have thought that through more."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who Favorited and added my story to their alerts. Now if somebody could please review that would be great thanks. A special thanks to EnigmaShady02 who called me out in one of his chapters. So here is chapter 4 of The Fox of Konoha: Revamped, please enjoy!**

Naruto woke up and immediately took stock of his location. The last thing he remembered was Anko appearing in front of him and preventing Mizuki from killing him. If there was one thing his sister was good at it was dramatic entrances. Looking around he realized that he was, in fact, in his own bed, the sheets having been thrown off in his sudden return to the world of the conscious. The light was streaming in through the cracks in the orange curtains in his window, the curtains themselves being ablaze with the morning sun. Normally Naruto would have enjoyed waking up this way, to the sight of one of his favorite colors lit up by the sun, but not today.

From just behind his eyes came the most excruciating pain, not unlike a headache, if a headache had a bigger, meaner, uglier older brother. Naruto Uzumaki was experiencing his very first migraine, and not only was the healing factor from Kurama doing jack shit about this very painful situation, but the very light itself seemed to be his enemy, sending lances of pain straight through his eyes and into his brain. Thankfully for the blonde he had learned about these kind of things before from all the reading that his godparents had made him do, more specifically Tsunade, wanting the blonde to have a basic knowledge of first aid and the like.

Naruto closed his eyes, cutting off the lances of light from his sensitive eyes, he tied the headband that was thankfully still on top of his forehead over them, yeah he might look ridiculous but it was either that or pain, and Naruto was no big fan of pain. He reached down his left leg, to check if the wound was still there from his encounter with Mizuki. He breathed a sigh of relief, all that was left of the deep gash was a small scab, and by the end of the day even that would be no more than an unpleasant memory, just another drop in the bucket for Naruto. He put his feet on the floor of his room and stood up. He was welcomed with a fresh wave of pain as he did so. Trying to focus through the pain he began to pulse his chakra into a wave, using the sonar like images that it provided him to chart his way down the hall to the kitchen where, to the best of his knowledge, were where his painkillers were. Unfortunately for him the chakra pulses only served to inflame his migraine even further, although not so bad as it would have been if he had used his real eyes for the same task.

As he reached the kitchen he reached for the shelf that he knew held the best painkillers that Tsunade felt comfortable giving him for emergency situations, there were several bottles and his chakra sonar, while it could detect them no problem couldn't make out the labels on the bottles. And so, with great distain for his circumstances he raised the headband off of one of his eyes and opened it up to the world receiving a blast of pain in that eye for his troubles, fortunately he was able to find the bottle that read 'In case of Migraines' on it. He took the top off of the bottle and swallowed two of the pills that were inside. Almost immediately he felt relief, he straightened out his headband the pain subsiding into nothing, looking at the bottle he noticed that it said that the effects of each dosage lasted four hours and, knowing that he would be gone for at least that long decided that when he left the house today he would bring at least one dose with him.

That raised another question for him, how in the world did he wind up in his room with a migraine!? He remembered saying hi to Anko and then…nothing. he noticed a note on the fridge, it was a way that Anko would communicate with him since she was usually only home at the late night hours because of her work at the torture and interrogation division, which caused her to be absent a lot, they did however go to the dango shop that she loved at least once a week for some, as she called it "brother-sister bonding time" which usually meant she was using him to drive off all the people that were hitting on her. Not that he minded, as it was either that or hear reports the next day. The last time he had been too busy with homework to go she had castrated six people and mentally scared another seven. And that wasn't even her record, or so she claimed, he didn't even want to think about the record.

He walked back to his room, this time with his headband off of his eyes. He opened the door to his room and walked over to his dresser, he pulled out a set of clean clothes before taking off his old ones and throwing them into the basket that sat in the corner of his room. His room was clean but not immaculate, the floor was clean at least but there was a mess on his desk and he never bothered to make his bed as he never saw the point in it. But he needed to keep his floor clean at all costs, if he didn't he was subjected to what Anko referred to as 'tag'. The difference between regular tag and Anko's 'tag' was that she used poisonous vipers and kunai to tag the person who wasn't 'it'. The last time that Naruto had played this 'game' he had been bedridden for three days while Kurama was purging all the snake venom that was in his system. During that time Anko had found all of his orange track suits and burned them. Every…Single…One. He had been mad at her for months afterwards, hardly even talking to her except when he needed to. And after about three months of that Anko had had enough of his moping and told him that he would either he snap out of it or play 'tag' with her. He chose to stop his moping, albeit begrudgingly, it helped that he and Anko reached a compromise one week later. He was now allowed to wear a dark orange as long as it was an accent on his otherwise black, Anbu like clothing. He noticed that, on top of his dresser was a box with a note on it, he opened it read its contents.

"Congrats on your graduation brat." It read, clearly in Anko's handwriting, "here's something that you should like, don't say I never did anything for ya. P.S. don't forget if I don't see you I made reservations at the dango place for tomorrow." Naruto sighed at the letter before opening the small box that the letter was resting on top of it. He opened the package and noticed the dark orange headband tie that was carefully folded inside of it. He immediately took the plate off of the old one and placed it on the new orange band. He then carefully placed his new forehead protector on the dresser and walked towards the bathroom, it was team assignment day and he didn't want to show up to class still smelling like he had been in the forest working up a sweat. He entered the bathroom and placed his clothes on top of a shelf that was conveniently located near the shower. He then grabbed a towel and threw it over the shower curtain so it was hanging on it. He turned on the water and waited for it to warm up so that he wouldn't send himself into shock when he stepped into the shower.

After a couple of minutes of waiting he stuck his hand into the shower to check the temperature, it was perfect, not to hot but not cold either, the perfect temperature for a relaxing shower. He stepped into the shower and let the refreshing water course over him, enjoying the feeling of being caressed by the water droplets as they fell down his skin. As he did so he began to wash his body, wanting to get rid of all the blood that was still clinging to him after the previous night he scrubbed against his left leg most of all, trying to get all of the blood off, it was no picnic seeing as how the blood almost refused to come off no matter how vigorously he tried to remove it.

 _"Um…Naruto is this a bad time?"_ came the inquisitive voice of Zephyr, paying no attention to the fact that he was buck naked in the shower. Naruto jumped out of his skin, dropping the soap and banging his head on the shower head in surprise.

"What the hell Zephyr!" he exclaimed holding his head, thankfully the pain from the collision didn't rekindle his migraine, his other hand was covering his more private area. "Can't you see I'm busy right now." The blush on his face was nearing Hinata levels of red, he hadn't been this embarrassed since Tsunade had taught him about the birds and bees, using one of Jiraiya's novels to highlight her points. She burned the book afterwards but that was beside the point. He grabbed at the towel and turned off the water, thankfully he had finished washing before Zephyr had interrupted him.

" _There is no need to be shy,"_ she told the embarrassed Jinchuriki, " _it was inevitable that I would see you like this since I am a part of you now."_

"Wait what!?" he had felt something happen when he met her that felt like their chakra mixing but he hadn't thought that it had made them into one being.

" _Yes, the Reisei Shidaigan creates a bond between us that links us together until one of us dies. That is why you are able to channel my power through your body."_ Zephyr explained to Naruto, not having the time to explain this earlier she wanted to explain it all now before he got busy again, not to mention he did have a nice body. _"It would not be wrong to say that, at the moment, I could be called sentient body of chakra, not unlike the tailed beasts. However, unlike them both myself and the others cannot take action without one who wields the Reisei Shidaigan."_

"So," Naruto said as he began to towel himself off, since it was inevitable anyways and he was stuck with her for life he didn't see any reason not to at the least dry himself off and get dressed, "are you the reason I passed out and woke up it a migraine?" he began pulling up his black, Anbu style pants and strapped his kunai holster to his right leg and then pulled on his black and orange t-shirt before pulling on his dark orange fingerless gloves, he didn't care if they made him look a bit foolish he liked how they felt against his skin and they helped him throw his shuriken and kunai better. At least that was his excuse.

" _Yes,"_ Responded the spirit of air " _at least in part. That was your first time calling on the power of your Doujutsu and you were able to maintain the channel for over a minute, that is almost unheard of."_ She explained in an awed tone of voice, " _With time you will be able to use it longer, as every time we merge and you channel my power we become closer and the bond between us grows. Allowing more and more access to what we can become, not to mention that I am only one part of the wheel."_

"What do you mean, 'only one part of the wheel' also, will I always pass out after we merge?" Naruto wanted answers now more than anything his natural curiosity kicking in full force.

" _I am sorry,"_ Zephyr looked like she wanted to tell him something, but something else seemed to be holding her back, " _but I am not allowed to tell you everything at this point in time, what I can say is that the passing out is a one-time thing, as your brain was expanding to be able to handle to additional input from your eyes, this is also the reason for your migraine. It should go away by the end of the day however."_

"So, even you can't give me all the answers I need," Naruto scratched his chin thinking a bit before asking his next question, it was almost time for him to leave for the team assignments, "Is it possible to do a partial merger?" he asked wondering if he could stay in a permanent partial merge in order to strengthen the bond passively. To which he got a laugh from Zephyr.

" _Not to my knowledge, but I do not know if that is because it is impossible or simply because it has never been tried before."_ Naruto was astounded, he thought that it would only be a matter of common sense to try and do a partial merge with the spirits, although since she had said that she was a part of him it was possible that they were already in such a state. He looked at the clock and started to run towards the window, jumping out of it and onto the rooftops, he loved the feeling of the wind on his skin, always had. He could feel Zephyr beside him as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, making his way to the academy as fast as possible while still enjoying the morning air. He felt revitalized just from being outside, it was an amazing experience. As he got closer to the academy he noticed his classmates walking in the normal way and decided to not go with the crowd, instead he found the window that opened into the classroom and, seeing it was open, leapt into the empty class.

He chose a seat near the front and pulled out the book Jiraiya had given him for his birthday, it was on the beginning level of fuinjutsu, an art that the Uzumaki had been famous for before they had been almost eradicated by another village in the last ninja war. He had always wondered which nation or nations had been responsible but there was no data to be found on the subject. So he was forced to drop that line of inquiry as it would produce no results for a very long time. He was about halfway through the book by this point and had already started to practice with some of the more simple seals using regular ink of course, Jiraiya and Orochimaru both had forbidden him from using chakra ink until he was able to copy the seals in the book perfectly and without deviation. A feat he had yet to master, but on the other hand his penmanship at this point was marvelous.

He heard the door open and watched as the first of the classmates to have passed the exam started to trickle into the classroom. Much to his surprise most of his class had passed, by which he meant the fangirls, including Ino and Sakura had both seemed to get near the top of the class in grades, which was kind of stupid in his opinion. But he wasn't Hokage yet so he couldn't do anything about it. He quietly read his book until Iruka showed up alone, something that shocked the class, as Iruka and Mizuki were usually never apart during school hours.

"BE QUIET CLASS" shouted the scar nosed Chunin using the famous 'Big Head Technique' to increase the size of his head by at least three times, it was rumored in the class that he had stolen the wrong scroll from the Akimichi and messed up the expansion jutsu and the result was so funny the Akimichi just let him go. "I will now call out your team assignments, after I call your names please stay seated until your sensei comes and picks you up." The class started to whisper to each other, excited to finally be placed on a team.

Naruto half listened to the first five groups, either not recognizing the names or just not caring about them in general, however when it got to group six his heart went out to the three suckers who were called.

"Team Six will consist of Rin Amaryllis, Hinata Hyuga, and Sakura Haruno, your Jonin sensei will be Anko Mitarashi." Iruka called out to the poor souls, cringing a bit as he did so, Anko was one of the more…eccentric…Jonin in Konoha and it showed. He had complained to the Hokage about his decision in the first place, not wanting to put his students in danger but was waved of. He could only guess at the Hokage's motives in giving Anko of all people a genin team. But questioning the Hokage was not in his job description apparently and so he continued down the list "Team seven will be Naruto Uzumaki, Yulia Yamanaka and Sasuke Uchiha, your Jonin Sensei will be Kakashi Hatake." Both Naruto and Yulia slammed their faces on the table, Sasuke was the absolute LAST person that either of them wanted to be paired up with.

"Team 8 will be Haru Amaryllis, Shino Aburame and Kiba Inuzuka your Jonin instructor will be Kurenai Yuhi." This went over significantly better than the other team assignment, "Since team 9 is still in rotation team 10 will be Shikamaru Nara, Ino Yamanaka and Choji Akimichi. That wraps up the team assignments, remember even if you do not like your teammates you are together now for better or worse, remember to show the Will of Fire and remember that from now on you are ninja of Konoha." Iruka had tears running down his face as he gave his students one final farewell and walked out of the room. Leaving the genin to wait for their new Jonin Sensei.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Hello everybody! Thanks to all of my alerts and favorites as you guys are some of the reasons I keep doing this. A special thanks goes out to Umi no Suiro for the first review of this story! Now, as always I hope you enjoy! Oh and by the way I don't own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto does.**

"This sucks!" Naruto exclaimed to the almost empty room, for the past two hours he had watched as one by one all the other teams had left the room as their sensei had bothered to show up on time. The constant ticking of the clock had begun to mock Naruto, going from something that used to release him from the torment of the school, to being the very thing that held him prisoner. He had finished his book half an hour ago and he was running out of ideas to keep himself entertained. He took out a kunai from his holster and began carving his face into the table, it wasn't like anyone was there to stop him after all, not to mention literally everyone else had done it at some point in time. It was kind of expected at this point.

And speaking of points he was balancing one of the kunai on the tip of his left index finger as a chakra exercise. Anko had taught him this one in order to keep him quiet during a…rendezvous…of hers one time. He had cut his finger more times than he could count because of it but he couldn't deny that his chakra control had improved by leaps and bounds. He was still bored though and it didn't look like either of his teammates wanted to break the silence anytime soon. Out of his left eye he noticed that Yulia had the same idea as him, except she was doing some kind of taijutsu exercise, she was lifting herself up on the table by one finger and staying absolutely still for as long as she could. Sasuke was in the corner again, brooding.

He sighed as he saw the clock ticking ever slower before getting up from his seat and walking over to the chalkboard, and drawing a man on the board. He then went to the back of the classroom and took out another kunai, throwing one after another at the man he had drawn in the board before pausing to walk down and take each one out of the board. After about five rounds of that he noticed the door crack open and, resisting the urge to throw a kunai at the man who had kept them waiting for several hours he put the last kunai into its holster. As the cyclopean Jonin entered the room Yulia came down slowly from her finger stand and Sasuke, kept brooding not even looking at the man with silver hair.

"Well, my first impression of you guys…I hate you, meet me on the roof in five minutes." He announced to the three assembled genin, much to their chagrin and disappeared from their sight, most likely shunshining from the classroom to the rooftop while using the absolute minimum effort he could while still trying to be mysterious.

"Well, should we go then?" suggested Naruto, who at this point was halfway through the window and walking up the side of the building towards the roof. Taking the time to get some fresh air after being stuck in the classroom for far too long in his opinion. As he walked up the wall he took in the fresh air, and got to the roof just before both Sasuke and Yulia opened the door connecting the stairway to the outside. Kakashi was already there, looking at them lazily, as if they weren't worth his time to notice. He glanced at the three of them as they stood in front of him in a kind of line, none of them dropping their guard around the strange Jonin.

"you all were faster than I expected, I'll admit that" he sighed, putting down the orange book that Naruto recognized from the time Tsunade had taught him, certain things that he didn't want to remember now, but he was able to tell that this man was a fan of the books. He noticed that Yulia took note of the orange book as well and was now sporting a scowl that looked like it could turn someone into stone if she could. But seeing as how the cyclops looking man was still flesh and bone it appeared that she did not, in fact, have that ability. "I want you to introduce yourselves, give me names, hobbies, things you like, things you dislike and your dreams." He pointed at Sasuke, "the moody one's first."

Sasuke sighed, not wanting to reveal anything about himself to these lesser people, most of all Naruto, he annoyed him almost as much as the fangirls did, no doubt his other teammate would be just as infatuated with him as well. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha I dislike many things and like few, I do not have a dream, because I will make it a reality, my goal is to kill a certain man."

Kakashi was unimpressed with the brooding avenger, cleaning his ear with his pinky finger. "Next is you blondie, the one with the ponytail." Pointing at Yulia with his other hand.

"My name is Yulia Yamanaka I like training, improving my taijutsu and other techniques, I also enjoy both dawn and dusk and the color the sky turns at those times. I dislike people who prefer to keep up appearances rather than taking their training seriously, and more than anything I hate people who think that they are God's gift to kunoichi." She glared at Sasuke the same glare she had given Kakashi not too long ago, to much the same affect unfortunately, "My dream is to become the best kunoichi in the village, as an example that we are not all just mindless fangirls." She then sat down and waited for Kakashi to finish the introductions, thankfully all that was left was Naruto, and he was pretty predictable to begin with.

" _It seems like I've got my work cut out for me"_ though the cyclopean Jonin to himself trying to decide when exactly to do their training exercise, he really wanted to put it off until the following day, seeing as how two of his students would probably not get along with each other. He sighed to himself _"I've got the anti-fangirl and the emo avenger and I would bet three months' salary that Naruto is anything but normal."_ "Ok blondie, it's your turn now."

"Ok Kakashi-sensei! My name is Naruto Uzumaki I like ramen, training with my big sister, foxes because they are cool, the color orange, my godparents for taking care of me as much as they could, nighttime in the forest and my new doujutsu. I dislike the three minutes it takes to make instant ramen, people who act like they are superior to others with no real support for such a claim, and paperwork."

Kakashi sighed, it was most likely going to be hell trying to get these three to work together, almost impossible some might say. He giggled to himself, if he got the test done now he would be able to slack off all the next day without having to babysit fresh genin. "Ok now that that train wreck is done with we can move on to the real test."

The three genin looked on in shock as the cyclopean man explained "This is the true test and only about one third pass this. This is the true genin exam. Meet me at training ground seven in one hour. And don't expect me to be late either, I'd rather just get this over with." He disappeared from the eyes of the genin. Leaving them to their own devices for the rest of the hour.

"So, how much do you want to bet the test is going to involve us working as a team for some impossible goal." Yulia said sarcastically, "because honestly that would be the worst possible outcome seeing as we have captain emo on the team."

Naruto nodded not liking where this was going "that is most likely the worst case scenario, therefore I think that is exactly what I think will happen." He looked over at Sasuke, "Hey!"

The raven haired Uchiha looked over at his two teammates, "What is it dobe?" he stared at the blonde, thinking that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was a waste of time.

"We should make a plan of attack in order to catch Kakashi-sensei off guard, just in case it is the thing we have to do, if not we'll just wing it." Naruto tried appealing to the Uchiha, but if the look on the raven haired kid was any indication, his answer was going to be less than satisfactory.

"Please, why would an elite Uchiha like myself even consider making a plan based on the assumptions of a girl who wasn't even in the top percent of grades in the class?" he huffed and stood up from where he was sitting on the ground, "I'd rather take the time making a trap or something, you two aren't even close to my level." And without another word he walked off the rooftop, so confident in his own superiority that he completely ignored that Naruto had done something he himself couldn't just moments previously.

Naruto looked at Yulia and shrugged his shoulders, motioning to the departed Uchiha, "Real friendly isn't he?" he sighed, shaking his head, "Well, why don't we make a plan then, just the two of us." He offered his hand towards Yulia "how about it?"

Yulia looked at his hand and took it in a firm grip, "To piss off that smug Uchiha? You bet your orange headband I'm in. So, what can you do Uzumaki?" she let go of his hand, "You got any ideas?"

Naruto smirked, a foxy grin spreading from ear to ear covering his face, "well now that you mention it."

 **Training Ground 7 1 Hour later**

Naruto and Yulia walked into the training ground almost simultaneously, Yulia walking slightly in front of Naruto, the both of them had a slight grin on their faces, as if they knew something was up already. They spotted the Uchiha sitting in the crook of a branch, his back against the main trunk of the tree. The bastard was napping, they just stood there in shock as the watched the last Uchiha lazily jump down from the branch he had been on and stretch his back as if he had just gotten the best sleep he had had in years. Kakashi on the other hand was standing in front of three log pillars, in his hands were two bells and a timer.

"Now that we're all here we can start the test," he placed the timer down in front of the three pillars, "You three will have till sunset to try and get these bells from me. In order for you to have a chance you must come at me with the intent to kill. Anyone who doesn't get a bell in that time will be sent back to the academy, is that understood?" he watched as the three fresh genin nodded in understanding, "Well then, BEGIN"

Immediately after Kakashi started the test smoke erupted from the three genin, and Kakashi saw Sasuke dart out of the smoke to cover, " _So at least one of them is smart."_ Through the smoke a barrage of kunai and shuriken assailed the silver haired Jonin, who pulled out a kunai of his own and deflected the barrage, pausing to catch some of the falling shuriken in the air he threw them back into the billowing smoke. Only to be surprised by two figures coming at him from the sides, it was Naruto, " _Shadow clones!? That's a Jonin level technique!"_ The clones took no time in attacking the Jonin, who jumped up and threw them into each other, only to see more shuriken come flying out of the dissipating fog. He easily dodged the new attack by the still barely concealed genin he saw that there were only two people left behind the fog, and threw the new projectiles at the silhouettes only to discover that his two potential students had vanished.

That was until he heard the wind behind him as he landed, he caught the foot rushing towards him, and was pushed backwards from the impact, not a lot, almost imperceptibly actually, but he was pushed back. He looked at the offending leg and the person it was attached to, the leg was had some kind of blood red shin guard on it that pulsed before going away, loosening his grip on the leg and letting his assailant get away.

"Manifestation Art: Gauntlet!" Yulia charged straight back at Kakashi, ducking under his first kick and punching right at Kakashi's face, manifesting a blood red gauntlet on her hand as she did so, the chakra manifesting itself mid swing giving her punch about three times the power it had on its own. Her fist connected with Kakashi's hand however and as she spun on her forward foot she dismissed the first materialized chakra construct and moved out of the way, running towards the trees. It was then that Kakashi felt the wind in the area rush towards the area where the last of the fog had come from, before Naruto came blasting at him with a barrage of lightning quick punches and kicks, Kakashi noticed that his feet weren't even touching the ground during the entire exchange. Then, just as swiftly as Naruto's barrage began, it ended, the wind died down and the blonde seemed to be exhausted.

"Damn it, I thought I had longer." He cursed to himself, backing off as quickly as his tired body could, which unfortunately wasn't very fast at all. Kakashi took advantage of the suddenly weakened Naruto he rushed forward, disappearing from Naruto's vision until he felt the hard chop of a hand on the back of his neck. As he fell to the ground he heard Kakashi tell him something.

"A frontal assault is only as good as the planning behind it, just charging in is a good way to get both yourself and your team killed." Naruto smirked back at Kakashi,

"You might want to look at where you are standing sensei" Kakashi looked down and saw that he was standing on a piece of paper, the corner of which was already ablaze, he jumped back as far as he could just before a giant explosion rocked the clearing they were in, through the smoke he thought he saw Naruto and Yulia escape into the woods, the smoke obscuring anything other than the silhouettes unfortunately for them it seemed like at least one of them was bleeding. He couldn't tell which one of them it was but he could tell that the wound wasn't much of anything, not for a ninja anyways. He also noticed that he was bleeding as well, his clothes had small cuts all over them, with all the wind chakra Naruto had been putting out he was surprised that it wasn't anything worse, he wasn't expecting any one of his genin to be able to use nature transformation yet and he had had been careless, something that had cost him a good set of clothes. He was broken out of his thoughts as out of the corner of his eye he saw shuriken and kunai fly towards him. _It looks like the third one has made his move, might as well play this one out._

 **Meanwhile with Naruto and Yulia**

"Well that went about as well as it could have" Yulia told Naruto as he rested his back against one of the trees that were so prominent in the training area, "You think we managed to get his attention?"

Naruto pulled out some bandages from his pouch and started wrapping a shallow cut on his forearm, somehow he had small cuts all over his body, thankfully Kurama's chakra was already healing all of them, unfortunately the same could not be said for his clothes, there were cuts and rips all over them, he wondered if that had happened before or if this was a new side effect of fusing with Zephyr, he also pulled out some chakra pills he had packed in case something like this had happened. "Yeah," he responded, his mouth half full of a chakra pill, "Sasuke definitely saw our little show," he closed his eyes and placed his head back up against the tree trunk, "Now the last of the Uchiha has to prove he's better than us, it won't be long before he attacks Kakashi-sensei." He could feel his cuts closing by the second and his chakra returning from the pill, he was able to take four of them before side effects started to kick in, he didn't like bothering Kurama for his chakra if he could help it, besides at this point he couldn't handle a whole bunch of it without going wild.

"You realize that our whole plan will fall apart if he doesn't take the bait right?" Yulia scolded him, "I mean, if he was anyone else your whole plan would be hinging on luck right now." She shook her head, "if this works I'm going to smack the crap out of Sasuke for being so dense." She stomped her food down on the ground, "I don't like how underhanded this is, I didn't think you had it in you Naruto."

"I just want to pass this test is all," he sighed, "If he had been less stubborn about the whole thing we could have all worked together, instead we are going with this." He heard an explosion in the distance followed by the visual of a red glow in the afternoon sky. "Well it seems I wasn't wrong about our teammate." He stood up and stretched, he didn't particularly like this part of the plan, it all depended on the kind of person that Kakashi was. If he and Yulia had been even slightly wrong about the type of test this was then the three of them had a one way ticket back to the academy. He glanced at Yulia, "Let's not keep our sensei waiting."

"You are either the smartest guy I've ever met, or the stupidest." Yulia sighed, but smirked at the prospect of seeing Sasuke's face when they helped him out, "Let's do this." The two of them walked calmly out towards where they had heard the commotion, before splitting up and trying to get a better picture of the situation. They stationed themselves in trees around the clearing. What they saw didn't really surprise them, Sasuke was buried up to his neck in the ground, he had clearly fallen for the bait that he and Yulia had put out for him, causing him to attack the Jonin alone instead of with a group. "Zephyr, how long until we can merge again?"

 _"We should be able to whenever you are ready, although it won't be for long as you are still not at your full chakra levels."_ Naruto nodded.

"Thanks Zephyr," Naruto looked down onto the clearing, sighed to himself, and motioned to Yulia to keep an eye out for Kakashi as he went down into the field to try and get Sasuke out of the ground, provided the Uchiha wanted the help that is, and to be honest he really doubted it. He walked up to the entrapped Uchiha, trying to keep himself on guard in case Kakashi had decided to stay around after trapping Sasuke. "Well it looks like the 'Great Uchiha' has gotten a lot shorter."

"Shut up Naruto," the Uchiha growled, his attempt at being at imposing thwarted by his position of being completely buried. "Are you getting me out of here or what?" Naruto reached down to grab the Uchiha's head, when he felt something cold and metal on his throat.

"I figured you'd get me when I went to get Sasuke, it leaves me too vulnerable." Naruto chuckled nervously, wishing he didn't currently have a kunai pressed up against his vulnerable flesh. "I'm also guessing you got Yulia first then?" he glanced out of his peripheral vision and saw that Yulia was, indeed captured by Kakashi.

"You two impressed me." Kakashi casually remarked, "You purposefully got your uncooperative teammate captured, just so you could show teamwork by trying to rescue him." The kunai left the blonde's throat, and he saw Kakashi take a look at the sky, the sun had just begun to sink behind the horizon, "I am still hesitant about this, but for now at least, team seven has passed." Naruto looked up at the silver haired Jonin as he pulled out Sasuke from his imprisonment. "Meet me here tomorrow for team seven's first day of active duty!"


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hey everyone, sorry it's been a long while since I updated, sadly college has taken a lot out of me lately and I've had no time to write. So I thought I would wrap up what I have for this chapter and give it to you all as a type of apology. I would sincerely like to thank everyone who is following this story, you guys are the reason I keep doing this. And my most heartfelt thanks go out to TigrezzTail, who has been gracing my stories with their presence for a long time now, and to kingrobert84 for their reviews. So without further ado…**

Naruto looked down from his position in the trees, his eyes following a shadow running on the ground. "This is fox, I have the target in sight, request permission to apprehend the target." He leapt from branch to branch, keeping pace with his target, but keeping out of sight so that the target did not notice his presence.

"This is Red, Emo and I have made a trap, drive the target towards us and we will help catch it." Yulia's voice came through crystal clear on his earpiece, as though she was standing right next to him, a creepy thought because if she actually was standing next to him then they would all get punishment training from Kakashi, which usually involved an obscene training schedule. It had happened before when he and Sasuke had gotten into an argument over his apparent lack of anything resembling a positive emotion. The massive number of pushups and laps around Konoha that the three of them had had to run were bordering on abusive, but Kakashi said it would help them in the long run. The bastard had said that DURING their continuous run around the village. But that was a flashback for another day, the target was running towards a clearing in the forest that spread out from the village proper, the shadow weaving left and right through the dense foliage.

Naruto chased the target into the designated capture zone, the beast flew into the clearing and straight into a fully armored Yulia, her red chakra gleaming in the afternoon sun. The beast immediately tried to claw its way through the girl in a desperate attempt to escape its sudden prison. But it failed, for all its fearsome reputation and beastly visage, it was, much to its own dismay, very much still just a cat.

"This is fox, missing pet Tora has been found and secured." Naruto spoke into his mouthpiece, noticing that the demon cat was actually managing to slowly scratch its way into the chakra armor that surrounded the girl. And Naruto knew from experience that that armor could turn away kunai and shuriken with relative ease. So the fact that any cat was able to put a scratch on it was a testament to the sheer ferocity of the feline. It was downright frightening each and every time that they had had to capture the cat over the several months that they had been Kakashi's students. The first time they had been sent to capture the errant feline Naruto had been sent to the hospital to get his right ear reattached. It wasn't a very pretty sight. Around the third time or so that they had been sent out they finally figured out that they should probably utilize Yulia's unique jutsu to capture the cat. And it worked, team seven had come out of that mission with only minor scratches and bruises.

"Well done, we should report back to Hokage-sama immediately," Kakashi's voice came through loud and clear on the radio, "I'm sure her owner will be overjoyed at the return of her precious Tora." He sounded about as enthusiastic as someone about to get a prostate exam…which is not at all, in case anyone was wondering. Yulia deposited the cat into the box that Naruto had designed for keeping the demon cat inside. The outside of the box looked like cardboard, but the inside had solid iron bars to keep the cat from clawing its way out, and, by cheating gravity by using some seals that he had been tinkering with in his spare time, the entire box, cat included weighed only a few pounds, far less than an iron prison box should have that's for sure.

"You know," Yulia commented as she deposited the cat in the box as Sasuke leaned against a nearby tree and waited for Naruto to put the lid on the box, "I swear this cat's claws are getting sharper." She pointed to the gauntlet and breastplate she had used to capture the cat, it was full of cuts and chips torn out of it. "They were NOT this sharp the last time we caught this little devil."

"Hn," Sasuke sighed, obviously bored with the mission that they had been sent on what felt like a thousand times already, although he himself had several cuts and scrapes all along one of his arms, his right arm to be specific. And he was currently bandaging those cuts even as Naruto was fastening the lid on top of the box he had designed. "It's like it learns from its previous encounters and gets better every time." during the time he had been training with Naruto and Yulia the Uchiha had changed, if only just a little and was much more open to viewing the two of them as teammates instead of just convenient meat shields for when he was in danger. He had been open to the off duty team meetings at Ichiraku Ramen that Naruto kept inviting him to, even if it was just to get food after training almost nonstop.

Yes, Kakashi had not been lax with any of his three genin, and there was a weekly bell test to further encourage teamwork between the three of them. That, coupled with the D-ranked missions that he had his team go on everyday as warmups and the serious training he gave them afterwards had seen the three genin improve by leaps and bounds. Out of all of them, it seemed that, although the progress made by Naruto and Sasuke was great, Yulia had progressed the furthest under the tutelage of the silver haired jonin, with the main reason being her uncanny affinity for shaping her chakra into whatever she damn well felt like. And the chakra exercises Kakashi had them doing were only improving her technique, she took to the tree climbing exercise so quickly Naruto could have sworn she was a monkey of some kind. If he hadn't known that she had been unable to perform it before Kakashi had shown her he would have sworn that she was cheating.

The three of them were also introduced to their chakra natures fairly early on as well, the reason being that he thought both Naruto and Sasuke would eventually hurt themselves is they kept practicing elemental ninjutsu without the control afforded to them by at least mastering one element. He included Yulia as well of course, but when she channeled her chakra into the paper it just turned the paper razor sharp and red as blood, something that surprised Kakashi as it didn't display any signs of doing anything else. That wasn't the only surprise he had when he tested his genin team, When he tested Sasuke he found that he already possessed the dual natures of Fire, something all Uchiha clan members had to a degree, and Lightning, something far less common in the Uchiha clan because of their already strong disposition for fire. At first it seemed like Naruto's chakra test was going to be the easiest to interpret, a clean cut going down the middle showing an affinity for wind chakra, then the papers tore themselves up, forming a pinwheel of five large pieces, one shredded itself down to almost nothing while the others kept revolving in a circle, as if waiting for something.

"Don't be so pessimistic Teme," Naruto quipped "it isn't like that cat is a descendent of an actual demon or something like that, that would just be stupid."

 **Meanwhile In Kumogakure.**

" _ **ACHOO!"**_ the famed bijuu commonly known as the Nibi did something she thought was impossible, " _ **I guess one of my admirers must be talking about me"**_

 **Back in Konoha**

"You sure they are ready for this Hokage sama?" Iruka looked at the team assembled in front of the mission desk, he couldn't believe that Kakashi of all people would request that his team be given a C-ranked mission. This was unprecedented first he passes a genin team in the first place, then, after only a couple of months decides that his team is ready for a C- Rank mission out of the blue. If Iruka hadn't known the jonin as well as he did he could have sworn the man had planned this out in advance, but that couldn't possibly be the case, the Kakashi he knew was too lazy to do something like that.

"Now Iruka, I do believe that I am the Hokage here," the Hokage scolded from his seat right next to the scar faced chunin, taking a puff from his ever present pipe as he did so, "and I think that if Kakashi believes that his team is ready for a C-ranked mission then, as Hokage I have to take his opinion over yours." He searched the desk in front of him, then picked out a mission he thought would complement the team's skill set. He saw what he thought was an appropriate mission and handed it to Kakashi, "The four of you will escort the Bridge builder Tazuna back to Nami no Kuni (the Land of Waves) , and protect him until he is done building a bridge to the mainland."

"Understood Hokage-sama/Jiji" the four of them said in unison, the deviation being distinctly Naruto in origin. In all fairness he WAS showing respect to the Hokage, just in a way that made many people question if he were sane or not. An answer to which not even Naruto could provide if questioned. The only people who could possibly answer that particular question were Ibiki Morino, and Inoichi Yamanaka, and the Hokage didn't think that Naruto's behavior warranted either of their attention.

At that moment the door to the meeting room opened to reveal an old looking man with grey hair. He was of average build and had a backpack on, in his hand was a half -finished bottle of sake. How did they know it was half finished? Simple, the man was quite obviously drunk off his gourd. He looked into the room and saw Team seven, "So these are the ninja that are supposed to guard me?" he slurred, obviously he was quite used to being drunk, a habit Kakashi was determined to break during their stint with the man, as Alcoholism was dangerous for shinobi and he didn't want any of his students exposed to such, "They look like a bunch of kids, how in the world are they supposed to protect me from a gentle breeze, much less anything else."

"Are you honestly so hungry that you're looking for a knuckle sandwich!?" shouted Yulia, just a second before Naruto could do something along the same vein, "Because I'm more than willing to give ya one ya old geezer!" she held her fist up, covered in her signature blood red chakra, giving her fist a menacing look. Unfortunately for her, the entire, 'I'm going to hit you' aura she had built up was shattered when Kakashi whacked her on the back of the head, hard.

"Yulia you can't threaten the client." Scolded Kakashi, "You all have an hour to prepare to leave. Meet at the front gate in one hour, and this time I mean one hour." He told his students before vanishing in a shunshin, more than likely to get ready to go himself.

 **One hour later at the gate.**

Naruto stood at the gate with Sasuke and Yulia, to the side stood the bridge builder, Tazuna, why were they all standing around you might ask? Well, because Kakashi, despite his explicit warning to not be late, was once again late himself. It was infuriating for the three genin, even if they dealt with it every single day. The three of them were not wasting their time however, instead of sanding idly by the three of them were doing various exercises that Kakashi had instructed them to do whenever they had free time. Yulia was doing pushups while simultaneously forming bits and pieces of armor over her body, the idea behind it was to train her to be able to form the armor or whatever else she needed without having to think about it. Sasuke, for his part was practicing his fire manipulation by trying to breathe fire without the use of an actual jutsu, something that, at first had given him severe burns all along his lips and tongue. However, with extensive practice he was now able to create small flames just with his breathing, and with the control that it gave him with his fire chakra his fire jutsu became all that more powerful. Naruto himself was working on cutting a hole in the tree using just his wind chakra, since he didn't have a waterfall nearby to practice with he made due with the many trees that were around the gate instead.

Tazuna looked at the three genin with a mild amount of distain in his gaze, to him they were just children, and children had no business doing what he needed done. Although, looking at the three of them, he thought to himself that if any children had a chance at protecting him, it would be these three. Not that he would tell anyone that of course, but still it was a small comfort for him. He just couldn't comprehend how any kids, no matter who their teacher was, could protect him.

"So, when is your sensei getting here?" Growled Tazuna, getting impatient with the lateness that Kakashi was displaying, while simultaneously taking a swig from his ever present bottle of sake.

"He usually gets here when we start questioning when he gets here." Came the response from Yulia, still in the middle of her exercises, "So it's become a contest between the three of us to see who can last the longest before asking." Out of the corner of his eye Tazuna could see both Naruto and Sasuke nodding in agreement.

True to the statement made just moments beforehand, Kakashi appeared in a whirlwind just behind Tazuna, causing the old man to almost jump out of his skin.

"Yo!" Kakashi greeted as he waved at the irate team of genin, "sorry I'm late, I got lost on the road of life again." He looked around and saw that none of his students were buying it, not that he cared one whit, but it was nice to see them all sharing the same opinion for once. "well, let's not keep our client waiting any longer, lets head out!"


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** **Merry Christmas to all of you, here is the next chapter of The Fox of Konoha Revamped for your viewing pleasure! Have a very merry Christmas and the happiest of new years!**

The trip from Konoha to the land of waves was supposed to be a relatively easy one. As this was a C ranked mission the group was on alert for the occasional highwayman or brigand, but was otherwise lackadaisical in regards to their approach to the mission. This was not to say that the four of them were in any way slacking off, their eyes were peeled, constantly scanning the surroundings for anything out of the ordinary. But on the whole, the whole mission didn't seem like it had any urgency to it. Although the old man had a habit of drinking during the time they were walking, by their best estimates it would take at least twice as long to get to the boat that would take them the rest of the way to Wave country than it would have if the old man hadn't been there with them.

"So how come we are guarding this old man anyways?" inquired Sasuke, he was getting really annoyed at the old man, he could hardly stand the stench that was emanating from Tazuna "with the amount of sake he drinks it wouldn't be a surprise if every bandit from here to the docks were already aware of where we are." He had a kunai balanced on the tip of his finger, as punishment for trying to light one of Tazuna's belches on fire. Kakashi was being very strict about the "No hurting the client" portion of their assignment.

"It doesn't matter why we are guarding him Sasuke," explained Kakashi, "what is important is that we do our jobs as well as we can, regardless of what kind of individual we are guarding at the time." Kakashi smirked behind his mask, while he wouldn't tell his genin there had actually been a number of missions that he had been on while in Anbu where he and his teammates had abandoned the client on strictly moral grounds. Of course he and the others had always made it seem like an accident and had paid for the mission out of their own accounts to cover the losses suffered by the village. Sure they were cold hearted assassins, but there was a limit to what even they would accept. "It important for us as ninja to represent our villages. More completed missions means that more clients will seek out our ninja as opposed to those from other villages."

"So in other words, more money for the village means we get paid more right?" Yulia cut in, she had a sneaking suspicion that Kakashi knew more than he let on, but it was only a suspicion at the moment, nothing more nothing less.

"Well in essence you are right." Kakashi sighed, "And for cutting me off I want you to randomly materialize a piece of armor on your body every three seconds for the next five minutes." He eye smiled at the young Yamanaka, sometimes he just loved his job. He looked over to Naruto, who was on what was probably his third plank of wood in as many minutes. Shortly after they had left he had told Naruto to keep practicing his nature manipulation while they walked in order to be able to do it quickly in battle. He looked at Naruto struggling with the increased density of the material he had to cut and chuckled to himself, he had given Naruto wood from a chakra tree, if it had been regular wood he would have cut it in two with ease a while ago, but the specialized wood dispersed and absorbed chakra which made it very hard to damage, even with specialized wind chakra.

"Damn it Kakashi sensei" Naruto cursed in a low voice so as not to attract attention from his cruel taskmaster, "this has got to be the hardest thing in the universe to cut in half." He threw the chunk of wood in front of himself, and to his surprise heard a splash. The wood had fallen into one of two puddles in the middle of the road. Now he wasn't the smartest ninja in the academy, but even he saw something fishy with this setup. And if he saw it, he was damn sure Kakashi had seen it as well. He picked up his plank of wood out of the water, carefully acting as blissfully unaware as he could to avoid getting attacked by whatever was inside the water prematurely.

He rejoined the group and nonchalantly showed both Sasuke and Yulia the plank of wood. They nodded in acknowledgement, both surreptitiously changing their training into something that would allow them to either attack or defend at a moment's notice. Naruto and Yulia also took a position closer to Tazuna than they had previously. The three of them had practiced this kind of situation in one of Kakashi's training sessions. At the first sign of an ambush the two close combat specialists would get as close to the client as possible, one on each side, Kakashi would usually take care of the rear, as he was the strongest and the enemy would have a hard time dealing with him, thus limiting their avenues of attack. Sasuke was placed at the front of the formation, as he had the best eyes out of all of the team, even though he hadn't awakened the Sharingan. Naruto's eyes were the second best, as although they did see much better than the average person, he was still training himself to deal with all the added input that the Reisei Shidaigan gave him, and to be honest is still gave him one hell of a headache whenever he used it to its fullest potential. All this lead to him being placed on the side of the client, as his and Sasuke's overlapping fields of vision gave the clearest picture of the battlefield at any given time. that, added to the fact that Yulia could block just about anything that came from her side led them to believe that they had a pretty solid defense, that could switch into an effective offense at any given time.

As the four of them passed the two puddles of water Naruto heard water droplets fall off of the would be attackers, one second passed, two seconds, he and Yulia turned around at nearly the same time, just in time to see Kakashi get torn to shreds by the two assailants. They appeared to be twins, or if not then at the very least brothers, they were armed with one giant clawed gauntlet apiece, connected by what looked like a very brutal chain. What was odd about them, however was not their style of dress, which appeared to be grey over cloaks and camouflage. No, what made their attackers weird was their eyes. Instead of the bloodlust or anger or even calm calculating slaughter their eyes were completely blank, their movements mechanical, as if following a set program of moves.

" **One down."** The one on the right droned in monotone, lacking any kind of emotion in his voice, **"Moving to eliminate target."** The two of the assailants moved in tandem, switching from one side to the other, their chain clanging and rattling while they moved.

Naruto and Yulia immediately moved to intercept the two assailants while Sasuke stood guard with Tazuna, not because he was weaker than his teammates, but because the three of them agreed that he would be the absolute last line of defense, as whomever could blitz through both Naruto and Yulia would also most likely suffer some kind of damage that Sasuke could exploit. That being said, the raven haired Uchiha threw a shuriken at the area that he thought could disable the chain. And it worked out kind of well. The two assailants were temporarily dazed by their chain being neutralized, but not for long, as both Naruto and Yulia delivered powerfull kicks to their heads, separating them from each other and snapping the chain at the point that the shuriken had cut into it. Sending the assailants to completely opposite sides of the clearing.

 **With Yulia**

She landed just a few feet from her dead eyed attacker, who was just getting up from a blow that she could have sworn would have knocked out anyone, besides Kakashi that is, and these two people were nowhere near her sensei's level. The dead eyes of her opponent were unnerving in the extreme, it was as if he had no soul, or else was in a state of deep hypnosis. Either way it didn't matter at the moment to Yulia, as her opponent had gotten up from the ground. He ran at her at speeds that surprised the genin, but that was all, she sank into her battle ready position, and felt the flow of her chakra. The attacker lunged at her with his claw, trying to end the fight as quickly as he possibly could.

Yulia quickly reacted to the threat, "Manifestation Art: Gauntlet!" she exclaimed, the words solidifying her mental image and keeping it firm in her mind. Two blood red gauntlet appeared on her hands as she blocked the incoming claws, the sound of steel on steel rang through the clearing, followed by the sounds of screeching as the claws ground away at the very tough chakra constructs that Yulia had formed. Yulia disengaged from her attacker, pushing against the claws before quickly falling back and dispelling her own gauntlets. The sudden removal of force against his attack threw her attacker off balance, it was a tactic that she had practiced ad nausiam with Naruto to take advantage of the speed with which she could dispel her manifestations.

She took advantage of the split second where the man was completely defenseless, and jumped on top of him, using him as a springboard she then jumped off of him as hard as she could, the force of her jump letting her get as high above the ground as the trees around them. As she reached the apex of her jump she began to spin, her leg pointed outward and covered in her signature crimson chakra. "Ninja Art: Crimson Impact!" her outstretched leg slammed right into the man below her, just as he was attempting to get back up for a third time.

This time she heard a very definitive snapping sound as the man's spine was split into at least two very separate parts. Her leg tingled a bit as she had slammed into the man with as much force as she could muster.

"Got you ya damn bastard!" She exclaimed, proud that all of her training hadn't gone to waste. She turned around, and felt something tingle in the back of her neck. She turned back and looked at her victim, who was once again standing back up, a black aura surrounding him. "Well this isn't good at all."

 **With Naruto**

Just like Yulia had, Naruto landed right in front of his soon to be opponent. He quickly drew a few kunai, laced them with his rudimentary wind chakra and threw them at the man, but it was as if his assailant had no regard for his own safety, as he just let the kunai impale, then go right through him without so much as a wince. His opponent was now full of holes, but there was no blood. There was a rotten stench in the air, emanating from his opponent, as if he had been dead for a long time before even getting wounded.

" _Normal tactics will not work on them"_ Zephyr whispered into his ear, " _Do not bother trying to aim for vital organs, decapitate them or otherwise incapacitate them at a minimum._ "

"Ok then" Naruto responded, feeling their link and diving into it, letting the feeling of the fusion flow through his body and soul, there was an unmatched feeling of freedom the accompanied it. His feet left the ground as the merge took full effect, and he more or less skated towards his assailant, going near the speed of sound as he did so. The wind chakra that he had been working so hard to control came so naturally during his fusions with Zephyr that he could hardly believe it. Everything seemed so clear when compared to his normal everyday life. As he approached his assailant he channeled the wind chakra into his hand, and slashed at the man.

What he didn't expect was that the man would shroud himself in a black aura. He could feel the corruption emanating from the aura, and could see it eating away at the ground below it. Fresh new grass turning old and dying in mere seconds after first contact with the aura. Unfortunately for him, it was too late for him to retract his hand and it passed though the awful aura. It felt like grease and oil and the grossest things you could ever imagine touching, all at once. His hand passed through the neck and spine of the man and the aura ceased, the severed head falling into the grass, before rotting away, going from flesh and bone to just bone in a matter of seconds. He vomited on the grass, the feeling of the aura overloading his senses. The shock of which forced him out of his merger with Zephyr. He was disoriented, his brain scrambled and his eyes hurt like hell. And, as was tradition for all things that caused this set of scenarios, he promptly passed out on the cold hard ground.

 **Back with Yulia**

Yulia was gasping for air, every time she put her assailant on the ground, he would get back up. What was worse was that whatever the aura was kept chewing up her manifestation arts and she kept trying to reinforce it, even though she kept trying he kept getting up no matter what she did. Then it hit her, she could not only get make her chakra hard, she could also make it sharp. With this in mind she focused on her arm, she tried to keep the image of a sword in her mind, even as she lunged at the assailant she shouted out the name of her new technique "Crimson slash!" she got close to the man, and just before she touched the aura, her chakra flew from the tips of her fingertips, forming a blade of pure crimson chakra and cut the man from shoulder to hip. She felt exhausted, the amount of time and chakra she had used in order to take the man out was far and beyond what she was used to using, even in their weekly spars with Kakashi.

With both enemies taken down, Kakashi reappeared from where he was hiding, he had used a substitution at he last second in order to escape from the chain, and had been observing how team seven handled themselves. and in that regard he had only one thing to say.

"Well done you three."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Merry christmas everyone, sorry for the short chapter and all that, but things have been going on in my life recently. I promise another chapter in the very near future. As for now, i wish you all the very best christmas and apologize for not updating more often.**

Night had fallen before Yulia awoke, the others had managed to set up camp, not willing to risk travel with half of their fighting strength out of commision. The bodies of their opponents had long been burned by Kakashi and Sasuke, to eliminate the possibility of them getting up yet again. It was strange, the air around the camp seemed still and stagnant, even the crackle of the logs on the fire seemed slightly muted. The stars above the clearing were less bright than in the Leaf Village

"Ow" as she awoke Yulia became more acutely aware of the pain in her arms, legs, pretty much everywhere that mattered. As she propped herself up on her hands she became aware that not only had night fallen, but that it had been there for a while. "Where"

"We haven't moved from the place we started, just a bit off the beaten path is all. As for the time it's just after midnight, if you must know."

Yulia looked to the side, and sure enough there was their masked teacher, leaning on a tree as the rest of them slept, including Tazuna. He had a sort of half smile even as his eyes betrayed his concerned about something. "Although if you had come to any later I would have called off the mission entirely, as it is…" kakashi looked up at the muted starlight, strange due to the fact that they were in a clearing.

"How long have i been out?" she managed to ask, the banging in her head still not quite subsided. "What about those others, please tell me Naruto and I managed to beat them. It was weird though, something kept devouring my chakra constructs, it felt...hungry almost."

Kakashi's smile faded for a second, as if he had figured as much, but refused to say anything about the topic. "Well, things like that happen from time to time in our world, unexplained things, chakra and experiments run amuck and all that."

Yulia looked at her teacher, wondering why he was being evasive. He hadn't drilled into their heads a questioning mind for nothing after all. For ninja like them questioning everything was second nature, and Kakashi had taken that one step further, encouraging them to ask whatever questions came to their minds, even if it contradicted something he himself had told them. Better to come to their own conclusions than blindly believe something someone had said and getting bad intel. But at the same time she could see that she wasn't going to get anything more out of him at the moment.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" a thrashing noise could be heard from nearby, from Naruto, Yulia and Kakashi rushed over to the blonde knucklehead, and to their horror his entire hand was engulfed in a black substance that seemed to emanate from his fingertips and snake their way around his hand, like vines sneaking their way up a tree to sap the life from it.

"Goddamnit"

 **Naruto's Mindscape**

As soon as he hit the ground Naruto knew where he was, he was no stranger to the cold wet sewer that served as his mindscape, nor was he afraid of what it entailed. But this time it was different, the water had a greenish tinge to it, and the whole place smelled unpleasant, as if there was something rotting in the water.

"Well, crap baskets, this can't be good." he mused to himself, taking a deep breath, a sickeningly sweet smell assaulted his senses, just as a crimson flame swept down the passage that he knew led to the fox, burning everything in the sewer except himself. When it had passed naruto could hear muffled voices coming from down the pipe, echoing down the hallway.

"...shouldve told…" came a low growl that was unmistakeable.

"...thought there was…"

"TIME IS NOT A LUXURY HE HAS ANYMORE"

The last bit shook the very foundations of the mind scape as the walls shook and the waters withdrew from the room just ahead of Naruto. As he walked in he was greeted by a very familiar scene, a large room that seems like it houses a lake, even if the water is actually only ankle deep. At the end of the room behind a cage that apeared to be made of gold, was the Fox, more commonly known as Kyuubi, but known to him as Kurama. And in front of the cage, floating before the giant fox's face was Zephyr, and she looked pissed. The air in the Mindscape reflecting this, swirling around Zephyr as she stood face to nose with Kurama. However Kurama wasn't backing down as every hair on his tails was standing up on end, all nine of his tails. The tension between the two palpable in the air.

"Sit down kit, its time this spirit gives you the rundown."


End file.
